a rose by any other name is still just as sweet, but, dear,
by mavens
Summary: red is the prettiest color for such a flower.


It had all begun on a day in late March, about a week into Spring, when they both were young, a witchling and two shark pups rushing around the palace that the girl had been told to stay in.

It was about a few years later that the girl who grew up chasing sharks through narrow hallways - hardly a place for anyone to run - was able to leave the castle and join the town itself.

The town that celebrated her as if she were a gift given by God; was it because, to them, the Great Sorcerer had been a savior to them? The girl never questioned, and merely tried to help as much as she could.  
Years went by, until the witch had reached the age of initiation of studying magic, requiring a familiar of her own, just has her father had before. The two sharks – Samekichi and Syakichi – were obviously her first choices, but her magic circuits weren't too powerful yet, so she could only keep one as a familiar.

It was a hard choice for her, but, in the end, she chose Samekichi, giving to Syakichi a single blossom – a striped carnation.  
_'I'm sorry I can't be with you as well. I wish I could.'_

And he returned the act with a single flower himself – a hydrangea, from the isle she loved.  
_'Thank you. For... For understanding, at least, Wadanohara.'_

Oh, the smile she made at the sight of the flower, and the tight hug she gave before walking away, hand in hand with his brother, he would never forget.

To say that the jealousy didn't get to him would be a lie, though.  
And monsters grow on festering hatred, do they not?

So, when he disappeared one day, swimming out into the old sea, no one really questioned it.  
Everyone just assumed that was where he wanted to die; he was an albino shark, after all. His life expectancy wasn't too good.

When he returned in the form of an albino dolphin, no one questioned. No one wondered who the person who asked to be called 'Sal' really was.  
Not even Wadanohara. Maybe that's what hurt him more.

Eyes watching him, denizens of the red sea whispering to him that, yes, she could be his. Not in this ocean, though.  
He had no problem with tricking her, using her innocence against her. She'd be his soon enough, after all, right?

But then Samekichi came in, and everything went to hell.

"Ghh... Syakichi, let go of her!" The younger shark yelled, startling the elder brother, and, with a quickly muttered spell, he erased her memory, pinning the incident on him.  
When she woke up in the castle, all she saw was a dolphin next to her bed, smiling sadly while holding out a vase of flowers in his teeth, gentle not to shatter the glass with too much force.

Purple Hycinth –_ 'Please forgive me, Wadanohara. I'm sorry.'  
_

The moment the cast pearl is shattered, the fragments raining down, pelting the sands like slithers of ice, she swore she could smell the fragrance of a familiar flower, that still couldn't relax her too much.

Petals of monkshood rained down; _'Watch where you step. A deadly enemy awaits you.'  
_

He reveals everything. He shows her everything, lifts the curse, allows her to remember and she curls up in pain, hands holding her head as the ache of remembering surges through her and she screams, screams for him to stop.

Her familiars crowd around her in that instant as she passes out, and he lets a single damask rose slip from his hand to the ground near her feet as he flees. _'The Ambassador... I love you, Wadanohara.'  
_

A vase of jonquils is behind him, on the gate's steps, and he's standing in front of his brother, who is on his knees, bleeding from all of the wounds the shark had given him, when Wadanohara comes in, alone, her familiars having separated from her beforehand.

He pleads with her to trust him, _trust him, holding out a single gladiolus, 'I'm really sincere, don't you see?'_

And she trusts him, falls for the bait he cast out for her, the lie he lured her in with forsaken, and he forces her onto the floor, the bundle of jonquils having been spilt out onto the cave's floor.

_'Love me. Please. Return my love, that's all I ask. Don't leave me alone again, Wadanohara.'  
_

_They're both in the dead sea, now, Sal having drowned her in her own tears before pulling her up and out of her sadness and returning her to the world in the form of a monstrous witch.  
When she sees him right after she wakes up in that sea, she grabs a flower – a moss rosebud, and places it right below his nose with a smile._

_'I love you, too, Syakichi.'_


End file.
